Help on making this PDF appear all at once

[marks_07]

Hi,

I'm struggling to make this PDF appear all at once when it opens, at the moment it opens up in increments.

I suppose its because of the effects that have been included, but is there a way of getting around this when exporting it?

Thanks

[marks_07]

PDF will need to be downloaded onto your computer/laptop to recreate the bug

Thanks

[Doug A Roberts]

How many steps did you put in that blend? 1000?

You'll need to create that in a more efficient way if you want it to load quicker. As it is, it's trying to render thousands of objects just for that title.

[marks_07]

Yes thats exactly what i did, is there a more effecient way of doing that shadow effect?

[Doug A Roberts]

I would be tempted to rasterise it (separately from the white text).

[Monika Gause]

Yes, sure there is.

Use either the plugin opo or the plugin Stylism to create it.

Or use this method:

https://www.vektorgarten.de/long-shadows-with-illustrator.html

This has to then be expanded and then gradients applied.

[Bill Silbert]

I did a test with your file where I deleted all of the steps that made up the shadows for the headline for a single one of the letters except for the first and last (making sure to keep a copy of the actual white letter). I then recreated the shadow using the "Smooth Color" option rather than the specified steps. The result was that the letter that I redid just popped right in upon opening the pdf in Acrobat while all the rest of the letters took their own sweet time. Once all letters were present and accounted for the quality of the shadow of the redone blended letter was indistinguishable from all of the rest. Hopefully, at this point you still have a copy of the original unblended headline that you can redo in this manner. To make the change from "Specified Steps" to "Smooth Color" go through Object>Blend>Blend Options>Spacing before you apply the blend.

[marks_07]

Hi Bill,

Thanks for looking into this, i have just tried to convert the current 1000 step blend into smooth colour but it doesnt come out right, can you show or explain how you did this to produce your result?

Thanks

[Monika Gause]

It doesn't matter which option you choose. They both generate too many steps.

And in both cases there will be separate objects in your PDF.

[Bill Silbert · Accepted solution]

It looks like the problem with the version you did is the choice of colors for the beginning and end of the blend. The way that I did it was to first make a copy of the white letters and then hide them (Object>Hide>Selection). In the outline mode I then meticulously got rid of all of the intermediate steps for the word "Purchase" using the direct selection tool. Before doing that, however, I determined what the exact color was of the final step closest to the white letters and made sure that the top of the blend letters (the ones that I was keeping) were filled with that color. Then I made sure that the bottom of the shadow blend letters was filled with the exact background color. The second picture below shows how the letters looked in the Preview mode at that point. The bottom letters are there but since they are filled with the background color they can't be seen. Then I used the Smooth Color option to blend each letter as shown in the third picture (I found that when I tried to make the whole word blend at once that the resulting blend became somewhat jumbled). Finally, I unhid the white letters to get the result in the fourth picture. As with the earlier time I tried this, the letters popped right in when opened in Acrobat.

[marks_07]

Thanks for doing this Bill, will try this out and let you know.

Monika- Thanks for your advice and looking into this, I tried to download the plugin, but the page doesnt load correctly. Also it looks like the solution you have given me doesnt work for Illustrator CC, I have tried the extrude and bevel and I can't seem to get the isometric top option.

Thanks

[Monika Gause]

You have to use the legacy 3D effects.

[marks_07]

This worked for me! Thanks again Bill, much appreciated!

[Bill Silbert]

Happy to help.